How ready are you for loss?
This has been on my mind before, but not so much lately. My mind wades in the shallow end of deep questions about existence, kept busy with work and avoiding the relentless coverage of bad news (What can I say? The relentless drive to define every goal through the prism of economic value turns out to lead to spiritual depriviation...)
I've experienced loss before. Probably the most recent devastating loss was work related, and it sounds strange to recall how much that shook my identity. I wasn't prepared for the earth shattering effects it would have, the transition I'd make from someone reasonably well absorbed in swimming and art experiments, to someone who couldn't make it through a day without crumbling. I quickly transitted into someone unhappy with their life, where they lived, their relationships, and wanted to avoid happy and successful people. But I survived, and in the end the things I needed were quite simple.
Nowadays the loss I am experiencing is probably that artistic introspection that I involved myself in more heavily before I came absorbed by work. I've read posts over at Seagreen on this theme, and I wonder if it will ever starve me as much as that. Oh I play, but the less I do, the more I fear I am becoming absorbed in craft, and missing the very aspect of what I loved most: the fight to express what it meant to exist. To actively contribute and document and create and demonstrate what it is to exist and connect with ideas and art and emotions you can't always use words for. I can see the changes when I look back at this post: Georgiezine: end of september
Other losses that people have: loss of home, loss of family, loss of family heritage (think Stolen Generation). In relation to recent bushfires, I thought it worth relinking to this post:
Georgiezine: Kinglake Green. Hard to believe that this lush green property and the adjacent house that Andy and I so loved visiting, is now all razed to the ground, stark black and devastated.
I've experienced loss before. Probably the most recent devastating loss was work related, and it sounds strange to recall how much that shook my identity. I wasn't prepared for the earth shattering effects it would have, the transition I'd make from someone reasonably well absorbed in swimming and art experiments, to someone who couldn't make it through a day without crumbling. I quickly transitted into someone unhappy with their life, where they lived, their relationships, and wanted to avoid happy and successful people. But I survived, and in the end the things I needed were quite simple.
Nowadays the loss I am experiencing is probably that artistic introspection that I involved myself in more heavily before I came absorbed by work. I've read posts over at Seagreen on this theme, and I wonder if it will ever starve me as much as that. Oh I play, but the less I do, the more I fear I am becoming absorbed in craft, and missing the very aspect of what I loved most: the fight to express what it meant to exist. To actively contribute and document and create and demonstrate what it is to exist and connect with ideas and art and emotions you can't always use words for. I can see the changes when I look back at this post: Georgiezine: end of september
Other losses that people have: loss of home, loss of family, loss of family heritage (think Stolen Generation). In relation to recent bushfires, I thought it worth relinking to this post:
Georgiezine: Kinglake Green. Hard to believe that this lush green property and the adjacent house that Andy and I so loved visiting, is now all razed to the ground, stark black and devastated.
Comments